Communist Totalitarianism: Keys to the Soviet System. by Bertram D. WolfeReview by: William B. BallisSlavic Review, Vol. 21, No. 4 (Dec., 1962), pp. 757-759Published by:Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3000601 .

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Reviews 757

assembling the material. But one cannot accept his conclusions. Although he mentions methodology, there is no scholarly method in the book. Nor is it clear what is understood by methodology. The methods followed are closer to eclectic empiricism, borrowed possibly from the newspaper world.

The author fails to see the difference in the value of his sources. He cites any material he can find to confirm his basic thesis on the "conflict." Excerpts from Mao and Khrushchev speeches are placed on the same level as newspaper reports of doubtful accuracy, and citations from Pravda or Jen-min jih-pao with obvious forgeries. Some facts are commented on arbitrarily; the analysis of others seems to be carefully avoided. For some reason, the reader is expected to accept the author's theory that Mao, when speaking of revisionism, has Khrushchev in mind, and Khrushchev, when defending "peaceful coexistence," is attacking Mao. Although the advan- tage to communism of promoting certain viewpoints in the West is evident to every worker studying Sino-Soviet affairs, the author makes no attempt to investigate the possibility that some of his material was planted inten- tionally by Communist agencies. Mr. Zagoria unfortunately neglected historical perspective by limiting the book to 1956-61. Serious analysis of Communist phenomena can only be made if the background of their devel- opment is taken into account.

There is no question but that strains exist within international commu- nism and within each member unit. Sometimes these undercover strains burst into open conflict. The history of international communism is indeed one of conflict. The construction of the Soviet state and the "world socialist system" were both accompanied by strains and shocks. To assert that no strains exist between Moscow and Peking would be as dangerous as to insist that the conflict is acute. Specific traits in the general historical development and the revolutionary movements of the two countries, differ- ences in revolutionary strategy and the stage of the communization process, and the obvious decline in the ideological authority of Moscow have all brought about strains. Analysis should find support in history, Communist theory, and practice of the Russian and Chinese revolutions, and no schol- arly analysis should be conducted from the platform of contemporary inter- national policy.

Mr. Zagoria's book fails to give a scholarly analysis of his subject. The book is a carefully composed anthology of superficial premises for antago- nism. No concrete conclusions regarding the Sino-Soviet "conflict" nor even its existence can therefore be drawn from this work. The problem remains unsolved.

Research Institute on the Sino-Soviet Bloc, RICHARD WRAGA Washington, D.C.

BERTRAM D. WOLFE, Communist Totalitarianism: Keys to the Soviet System. Rev. ed. Boston: Beacon Press, 1961. xx + 328 pp. $4.95.

In 1956 Bertram Wolfe, one of our most incisive critics of the Kremlin, pub- lished his Six Keys to the Soviet System. In the present work, which is, like the 1956 book, a collection of previously published articles, speeches, and

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758 Slavic Review

reviews, Wolfe has added new publications and recent commentaries on earlier published materials. He courageously stands on what he wrote twenty years ago, republishing it in its original form. As Leonard Schapiro writes in the foreword, "this collection of essays and articles assumes a unity in spite of its anthological nature-it becomes a kind of handbook of totali- tarian behavior in its various aspects both internal and external." The seven (he adds one more key in this book) "keys" which Wolfe forges to unlock the mighty doors of Soviet behavior are: "The Struggle for Power," "The Coordination of Culture," "The Worker in the Worker's State," "The Two Types of Soviet Election," "The Kremlin as Ally and Neighbor," "The Nature of Totalitarianism," and "The Soviet System and Foreign Policy."

Wolfe puts all this diverse material into a kind of mosaic-like unity. This is not as difficult for him as it might be for others because he sees the basic character of the Soviet system as unchangeable. The nature of Soviet power as it is presently wielded needs totalitarian rule. The system goes on while the leadership changes. Wolfe argues that under totalitarian rule, collective leadership is impossible because there are no constitutional rules governing the sharing of state power. He believes the Soviet dictatorship requires a dictator and that Khrushchev fits into that mold.

As a Marxist apostate, Wolfe has a very critical insight into the nature of Marxism. He attacks the beliefs in Marxism "as a scientific method of reasoning and as a philosophy of history."

He quotes Khrushchev's remarks in 1956 to a French delegation: "His- torians are dangerous people. They are capable of upsetting everything. They must be directed." Wolfe points out how Khrushchev, like Stalin, has ordered the rewriting of history. Just as Stalin expunged Trotsky and many of his contemporaries from the party annals, Khrushchev has elimi- nated from the record the party deeds of Molotov, Kaganovich, Malenkov, and others, retaining their personalities only in the image of "anti-party" plotters.

Criticizing Soviet science and education, Wolfe demonstrates how these instruments of knowledge are shaped in the image of current party goals. It is the Central Committee of the party, and specifically its First Secretary, which decides what kind of science is extolled and what kind of education is imposed.

After discussing Soviet culture, Wolfe moves on to show how the workers' state is a contradiction in terms. A new kind of enslavement of the worker has been substituted for the bonds of serfdom. The regimentation and militarization of Soviet life has bound the worker in a new kind of servitude.

Wolfe points to the phony character of Soviet elections which turn out a 99.2 to 99.8 per cent vote for the party and contrasts this kind of an election with the silent elections of those who have broken with the regime by fleeing from Soviet rule when it was reimposed in formerly Soviet territories.

In the section on the Kremlin as a neighbor, Wolfe recalls some articles and speeches he wrote twenty years ago warning of Stalin's duplicity at Yalta, his underhanded treatment of the states of Eastern Europe, and the vogue of

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Reviews 759

regarding Chinese Communists as innocuous agrarian reformers. Many of these observations were not taken seriously, as we all know too well.

On the last pages of this indictment of Soviet policies, Wolfe concludes that an alert opponent of the Soviet regime "would find more vulnerabilities than he would know what to do with if he were really on the job." The vulnerabilities lie mainly in the questions of land, peace, goods, and freedom. Wolfe ends his book with a plea for us to take up these vulnera- bilities and to show with our power that we are advocates of true agrarian reform, peace, full enjoyment of the fruits of our economy, and champions of freedom for all.

University of Michigan WILLIAM B. BALLIS

ROBERT V DANIELS, The Nature of Communism. New York: Random Houise, 1962. xvi + 398 pp. $6.00.

"It is common to treat Communism as a conspiratorial movement or as a secular religion or as the reincarnation of Tsarism or as the studious appli- cation of the principles of Karl Marx," the introduction of this book regret- fully notes. By contrast it promises not to "choose among the various pos- sible interpretations of Communism," but to "try to utilize each of them for whatever insight it may yield. In this fashion we shall examine Com- munism first as the orthodox application of Marxist principles; next as the creature of the Russian Revolution; then as a party conspiracy; as a struggle for world power; as a product of Russian history; as a rebellion against the 'West; as a form of the industrial revolution; as totalitarian society; and as a secular faith."

The promise is refreshing, but the reader soon finds that the purpose of the broad range is primarily to knock down to manipulable size elements which threaten to compete with the author's own "either-or" thesis. Marxist principles become an irrational ritual to give the regime a glow of legitimacy and righteousness; the revolution has ended, replaced by a conservative quest for legitimacy; the struggle for world power stems automatically from the concrete existence of two giant "camps" pursuing strategic goals; Rus- sian nationalism is "more manipulative than genuine;" and "totalitarianism is in certain respects the factory writ large." In effect he has reduced the "nature of Communism" to a system of industrialization promoted by a power-hungry party. The greater the industrial progress, the more the party's continuance in power will depend upon its reason, conservatism, and moderation-in controlling its people, putting the brake on a more fanatical China, and in dealing with the West. Since communism and capitalism are merely alternative methods of industrialization, and the Communist Party interested only in the strategy of how to maintain most safely its own power, it is within the realm of possibility that tensions may tone down in the future to the point of "real international organization." Meanwhile the West must use its power and reason to see that the underdeveloped countries do not turn to Chinese communism and that the H-bombs do not fall inadvertently.

Professor Daniels' thesis is cogent. Perhaps it is too cogent. In his own

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